The Columbia University College Democrats spent fall break canvassing for the Virginia gubernatorial race. Reporter Gabriela Hempfling traveled with them. Here are her dispatches from the trip.
Friday
After gathering on College Walk at 8:30 a.m., 36 Columbia University College Democrats finally rolled off campus in three vans. Inside, they discussed the upcoming election in Virginia.
The CU Democrats honored election day with a campaign trip to what is fondly referred to as “NoVa” or Northern Virginia. There, they planned to mobilize Prince William County Democrats to vote for Creigh Deeds in the Virginia gubernatorial election.
Though Republican opponent Bob McDonnell was polling an estimated 14 percent lead, the CU Democrats targeted this election because of its wider implications. Specifically, this was the first election where the coattails of President Barack Obama’s influence would be tested. Overwhelming victories by the Democrats last year were attributed to the momentum of the Obama campaign and were not predicted to last without some sort of revival. The CU Dems went to reawaken the Democratic spirit of Virginia that seemed lost, but not gone.
Saturday
Packed tightly in the van with water, sandwiches, and Democratic “lit” to hang on doors, the Dems dropped off groups of two or three in various neighborhoods. These groups went door to door and reminded new Democrats that their vote was vital to the party, a political strategy known as canvassing.
Voters who may have promised some sort of loyalty in the past but were relatively new to the party could expect a canvasser to knock on their door if they were in a particularly undecided district. Highlighting the advantages of this practice, Talia Arbit, BC ’10, remarked, “mobilizing people is what makes a grass roots movement possible. It’s such a positive experience and is good preparation for the future.”
Each group of two managed to reach about 50 houses in the first three-hour shift. In the entire county there are a little over 85,000 people who vote, and the Dems knocked on 10 thousand doors. It was rare for more than half of the inhabitants to answer their doors, and more often than not, they were resentful at having been disturbed. If they were not already angry by the time they reached the door to find a stranger there, it didn’t take much more to increase their agitation.
One man took offense at being asked if he knew where the voting booth was. “Ma’am, I have lived here for many years,” he replied. Each canvasser tried to take in as many clues as possible to gauge his or her subjects’ values. The obvious ones were McDonnell signs in the front yard, while subtler ones included military service, children, age, gender, and profession. The Dems tried to catch these hints so they could bring up certain issues when the voter asked for information.
In Virginia, a key issue seemed to be solving the transportation problem. While both sides promised new infrastructure, they did not agree on how to pay for it. Deeds was willing to raise taxes, while McDonnell absolutely refuses to do so, perhaps at the cost of other programs, like education.
At campaign headquarters, the CU Dems calculated their canvassing statistics and crossed out houses with bad responses. Each list was constantly updated so the next round of canvassers wouldn’t waste their time.
Sunday
Motivating the Columbia Democrats, Jonathan Backer, CC ’10 said, “The polls are based on an assumption that last year’s voters won’t turn out this year. We go out and show them that ‘Change we can believe in’ wasn’t just a slogan and doesn’t just come with one candidate.” He further urged canvassers to “go out and remind people because we want lower insurance premiums, education reform with higher salaries for teachers, and an end to wasteful wars.”
The tradition of the canvassing trip began in 2004 and has helped each year’s targeted district turn out unprecedented numbers of Democratic voters. Columbia University student activism is the reason why the University has fall break at all.
Barnard professor Robert McCaughey, a Columbia University historian and the author of “Stand, Columbia,” explained, “Two positive results of the 1968 protests, though neither part of the protesters’ demands or their direct doing: the creation of the University Senate and, by vote of the Senate in the spring of 1970, the two-day break in early November to allow student involvement in election process back home.”
Voting via absentee ballots, the CU Dems encourage students at Columbia to use the extended fall weekend for how it was initially intended. Sarah Gitlin, CC ’13 commented, “I think fall break should really be called Election Weekend to remind Columbia students to utilize their right to vote.”
Meanwhile, Sunday hours of door-to-door canvassing were only from 1 p.m. to 6 p.m. so as not to agitate potential voters. Afterwards, the Dems visited the houses that were not reached by phone.
Monday
In the face of nearly certain loss, the Dems worked to minimize the gap between Deeds and McDonnell. Since the 1970s, Virginia has swung between Republican and Democratic governors.
Many of the CU Dems took issue with more than McDonnell’s political affiliations. Though lately he has tried to distance himself from the master’s thesis in which he denounced working mothers, homosexuals, and contraception for unmarried couples, the CU Dems said they felt these tenets are underlying motives for his policies.
And the Dems saw that some Virginians still associate him with these words, as evidenced by an encounter between Jenna Hovel, BC ’10, and the inhabitant of a house on her canvassing route. “He told me flat out that he agrees with McDonnell that working women are detrimental to families and then just kept talking until I left,” she recounted.
Tuesday: Election day
The Dems spent their day canvassing and ensuring the visibility of the Democratic Party in the hopes of high voter turnout. Their campaign ended when booths closed at 7 p.m. so they could begin the long drive back to Morningside Heights.
On the way back, though, less than happy news rolled in at about 8 p.m. as McDonnell took both the state and Prince William County. But an exit poll from the van showed that they were proud, regardless.
“The results are disappointing for our organization and, more importantly, for the state of Virginia,” said Avi Edelman, CC ’12 and vice president of CU Dems. “The important thing for us is that we went, we knocked on something like 10 thousand doors. Between our vans on the way back we made close to two thousand phone calls. In the precinct we worked in, we were the only volunteers, and we could feel the difference. Unfortunately, the time we were in Virginia didn’t yield the result we wanted.”
He added, “We can be proud, at the end of the day, of the work we did, and the democracy we brought to the state of Virginia.”
COMMENTS
Comments will be moderated in accordance with our comment policy